Mario, The Classic Video Game Character, Fights City Hall [Watch]

Institute For Justice

For Scott Fisher, gaming is not just a passion; it is also how he supports his wife, Lori Fisher, and two children, Kailey and Ryland. Scott runs a video game store called Gone Broke Gaming. To bring in more customers, Scott had displayed a 9-foot inflatable Mario—the classic video game character—in front of his store last summer, with great success. Over the next two months, Mario not only helped customers find the small store, but it quickly became a local attraction for kids and adults alike.

But not everyone is a fan of the iconic Italian plumber. According to the town’s sign code, Scott is banned from displaying inflatables that are related to the products he sells. In other words, Mario cannot be displayed because he is a video game character and Gone Broke Gaming is a video game store. Officials in Orange Park, Florida have demanded that Scott take it down or be fined $100 a day, so Scott had no choice but to deflate Mario. Gone Broke Gaming has seen a decrease in foot traffic ever since.

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In Search Of History

Thanks to "bracket creep," the inflation of the 1970s pushed millions of taxpayers into higher tax brackets even though their inflation-adjusted incomes were not rising. To help offset this tax increase and also to improve incentives to work, save, and invest, President Reagan proposed sweeping tax rate reductions during the 1980s. What happened? Total tax revenues climbed by 99.4 percent during the 1980s, and the results are even more impressive when looking at what happened to personal income tax revenues. Once the economy received an unambiguous tax cut in January 1983, income tax revenues climbed dramatically, increasing by more than 54 percent by 1989 (28 percent after adjusting for inflation).